Photos by Tom Rivers

BATAVIA – Anthony Hernandez Landaverde, a sophomore at Lyndonville, operates an excavator on Tuesday at the Genesee County Fairgrounds in Batavia. The excavator was one of the stations at the annual GLOW With Your Hands workforce exploration event.

There were about 1,200 students from the four rural GLOW counties at the event. In Orleans County, the participation included 45 from Lyndonville, 60 from Albion, 40 from Kendall, 40 from Medina and 20 from Holley.

Tanner Holliman, a Kendall student, is shown some lineman skills from Kevin Czuba of National Grid. The utility company shared about jobs with the company, including linemen, service work, stations work, material handlings and planning.

The workforce development staff, business and economic development leaders, and education officials from Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming have teamed to organize GLOW With Your Hands since 2019, to help students see high-demand careers in manufacturing, agriculture, skilled trades and healthcare.

The officials want to fill needed positions for local businesses and connect local students to careers in their communities.

Brunner in Medina had a team at GLOW With Your Hands for the first time to let students know about the company that manufactures brakes for big trucks and school buses. Brunners will be expanding and adding 30 to 40 employees at Medina because it will be producing lease rings at the site.

From left to right include Justin Ennis, human resources for Brunner; Samantha Ford, human resources for Brunner; Brian Pitcher, forge manager; Michael Lang, engineer; Seamir Rahman, materials manager; and Josh Sanders, maintenance supervisor.

CNC Technical Solutions in Medina also had a display at GLOW With Your Hands and showed students its robot dog. CNC offers hands-on industrial training.

Kayleigh Hepper of Perry uses an auto-feed screw gun to hang drywall at one of the station’s on Tuesday. David Littlefield, an instructor with Rochester Davis-Fetch, a commercial interior contractor, led the station. Littlefield said the GLOW With Your Hands event did a great job showing students many different career opportunities in the local community.

 Students meet with businesses and organizations in one of the fairgrounds buildings. There were more than 70 employers, industry partners, post-secondary institutions and workforce organizations representing opportunities throughout Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming counties.

Since 2019, more than 6,000 students have attended GLOW With Your Hands.

Charles Augello, owner of Western New York Aerial AG, showed students his drone and highlighted how agriculture is embracing technology. Augello started his company last year. He is very busy, often doing 150 to 200 fill-ups a day and spraying herbicides and fungicides for local farmers.

The drone was in demand this year with so much wet weather. The mud often kept farmers from getting sprayers and equipment in their fields. Augello was able to use his drone with a 26-gallon tank to spray onions and other vegetables.

“We need more drone applicators in the area,” he said.

Students in the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering program at the Orleans/Niagara BOCES highlighted that program to other students. From left include Jackson Snook, a senior at Albion, and Brody Hazel of Lyndonville. In back is Mason Snook, an Albion senior.

Jackson said he enjoys making different parts of machines. The BOCES programs also has been a fun way to meet students from other nearby districts, he said.

The AME program teaches Computer Numerical Machining, Computer Aided Design and welding technologies.

Mason Snook said there is a lot of hands-on learning in the class.

“We spend about a half-hour in the classroom, then it’s about two hours of building things,” he said.

GLOW workforce officials said the local BOCES programs have seen a boost in enrollment partly through the GLOW With Your Hands events.